A Vision
by 153alira
Summary: Ben Solo wants answers and tries to master meditation but with a surprising result that raises more questions than answers. (Basically little Ben has a Force Vision) Originally posted on my tumblr page tamurilelensar.
**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, Disney does (Like EVERYTHING!)**

 **Just a small short story about little Ben Solo having his own Force Vision while trying to understand his own abilities. This may or may not expand into multiple chapters but for now can function as a stand alone fic. Blame the little plot bunny in my head for this one.**

 **Originally posted on my tumblr page under** **tamurilelensar.**

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Ben Solo was not what anyone would call a normal child. Not a strange thing when one looked at his family, but still he was different. He was not a patient child, constantly edgy and always needing to move about the space he was in until he had nowhere else to explore. In his mind he was surrounding by an energy that either was too far from him or too near, flowing like waves on a Naboo shore, frightening Ben but also piquing his curiosity. Like waves his emotions changed constantly and at times the energy surrounding him changed with him.

His father couldn't help him overcome it.

Sometimes occupying his hands helped take his mind off it and when he was in his father's ship and left to his own devices he would start tinkering with odd bits and pieces of machinery left over from the constant repair work. Ben liked to see the inner workings, just how it did what it did and how could he make it better. But when he couldn't get something quite right he was overwhelmed with the urge to break it. His father only softly chuckled and ruffled his hair, explaining that it was natural to be angry when things didn't go as planned, a sign of a growing boy.

He stopped chuckling when his wookiee co-pilot found the little boy beating his fist into a panel until his knuckles were raw.

Ben couldn't help it. He just ... felt a lot.

His mother couldn't help him cope with it.

She explained in her own vague way the Force when he was small, how it surrounded them and flowed through every living thing, how those call 'Force-sensitive' had a deeper connection to it. Ben was intrigued but his mother's gentle voice was often overshadowed by some other voice, if it could be called a voice. It left him feeling cold on the inside, like ice melting and drenching his mind slowly with questions, doubts, frustrations.

His mother did what she could, but her work took her away from Ben a lot. He missed her terribly, more so than when his father took off. In time though the yearning Ben felt morphed into almost resentment and the noise in his mind grew, like an itch he could scratch but never ease.

His uncle tried to help him understand.

The day Ben arrived at the small but growing Jedi settlement on Yavin IV was not a happy one. He believed he had done something wrong and that his parents had given up trying to help him but Luke, with a serine look in his bright eyes, reassured him not to give into those assumptions.

There were other like Ben, other children younger and older who were Force-sensitive, but they were not like him. The smiled and went about their days carefree and happy, while Ben remained withdrawn and unable to bring himself to be so carefree. He committed himself to his studies since it was expected of him and yet he had problems mastering simple tasks, meditation, defensive forms, teamwork drills. Half of him believed he didn't need those things, and the other half despaired at his failure.

One day Ben found himself far from the Academy after a morning of failed meditation and practically kicking the earth up as he ventured out to his secret place. A small glade in the middle of the tense greenery of Yavin with a rotted stump at it centre, the leaves and grass damp from a brief squall that had passed an hour before.

Here been could vocalize his frustrations.

But today was a different day. Instead of shouting Shyriiwook profanities or crushing pebbles with a thought, he challenged himself. He sat on the stump with his legs folded underneath him, smoothed out his Padawan tunic and centred himself as best he could. He lacked control over his emotions as Luke had put it and thus he could not clear his mind to meditate properly.

It was a trying process. The uneven surface dug into his backside, the native birds shrilled in the tree tops and Ben could practically feel every movement of the forest through the Force. Ben gritted his teeth and shifted his hands everytime he started his meditation over. After the sixth time he tried counting his breaths one by one. He purposefully slowed each one so that air filled his lungs to the breaking point, his scrunched up eyes finally loosening up so that his whole body relaxed.

Then something changed.

Ben took in a deep breath and then her felt it, a sudden shift like when the piece of a puzzle shifted finally into place. The sounds of the birds and other odd wildlife went quite. The cool breeze stilled and even the stump beneath him vanished.

For a brief moment in time Ben felt completely at peace.

It was growing hot. The air surrounding him grew thick with the smell of burnt metal and ash.

Out of instinct Ben opened his eyes and prepared himself to flee from the danger, but what he saw only made him freeze up. Two dead Neimoidians lay across from him. Ben stood and backed away from the bodies.

He wasn't in the forest. It wasn't even Yavin anymore. It was a room, a command centre much like the ones his mother would frequent on delegation trips. But the technology was unfamiliar to Ben, much older than anything he had seen. The world beyond the glass panels was red. Ben kept search for a way out but found the room was full of dead bodies. A figure in black crossed the room in long strides and Ben stood memorized by the sheer power emanating from him as he advanced on a cowering Neimoidian

' _The war is over. Lord Sidious promised ...'_

The man in the cloak raised his arm and Ben gasped at the sight of the blue glow of a lightsaber cutting down the Neimoidan. The body crumpled and the man turned his attention to Ben, his yellow eye narrow and threatening.

Ben turned and fled for the open door, seeking the light at the end of the corridor.

' _Please. Stop. I love you!'_

' _You were my brother!'_

The screams faded behind him as Ben broke out into the open air, clean and free of ash. He had run onto a large balcony overlooking a mountain range bordering on a white city. A woman in a royal blue gown sat passively staring out on the sight, holding herself with such poise that Ben had only seen in his mother. She was joined by a tall man with tanned skin and worn formal attire who passed a white cotton bundle to her carefully. The couple sat in as the sun set behind them, gazing lovingly down at the sleeping child in their arms like it was the most precious treasure in all of the galaxy. Ben wondered if this was what own parents did when he was a babe.

He felt he shouldn't be there.

Someone cry out in the distance. A little girl, scared and alone, calling for someone who would never come. But Ben would.

He could feel her loneliness resonating with his own.

Ben ran for the edge as the floor gave out beneath him. He had to keep going, to find the source of the cry, but he fell all the same. It was a short fall onto a narrow gangway but Ben had landed on his side. There was that light again, beaming down from above and onto the gangway and the great chasm it spanned over. Ben steeled his nerves and began to walk again. He was in the heart of some sort of machine that thrummed with artificial life.

' _I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate.'_

' _Do, or do not. There is no try.'_

' _I will not fight you Father.'_

There was a great pain in Ben's side and he clutched at it weakly, hoping it would stop. He kept heading to the light but it was fading fast.

He had to reach it before it was too late. He could hear his father screaming in pain. He was being tortured.

The light went out Ben felt an even greater pain in his chest. _'That's when I lost him. When I lost you both'_

An explosion rocked the structure, followed by multiple smaller ones that started to circle around the machine. Ben tried to go back the way he came but the world was spinning around him.

' _No! Come back!'_

Fire became ice and machine turned to nature. Ben was sprinting through the trees where a thick layer of snow blanketed the earth.

' _You ... you're afraid.'_

There was someone ahead, standing in the snow. A woman. A Jedi. Ben knew it, he saw the Force swirl around her like the snowflakes. He stared at her and she stared back.

Yet she looked at him was a mix of apprehension and determination. She was afraid, but she did not cower and stood her ground to face her fear. A lightsaber came to life casting a pale light onto her face and Ben was lost. Her hazel eyes glowed in the darkness.

' _Bring ... her ... to ... me'_

Ben's body jolted and his eyes snapped open. He was panting wilding, sweat forming on his brow and running down his nose.

He was still on the stump in his glade.

The snow was gone. The voices, the explosions, the Jedi ...

He unfurled himself from his seat and paced about to regain his composure. What was that? Uncle Luke always said that to meditate was to calm the mind and all Ben felt was turmoil. It had all been so much that Ben could hardly make sense of it.

Perhaps if had been a vision of sorts. But of what? The past? Or was it the future?

The boy decided to think more on this later. For now he could return to the temple with the knowledge that he had gotten the hang of meditation.

The Jedi he had seen though ...

He tried to remember her face, commit it to memory should he ever cross paths with her.

If she was at all real.

The Force had been strong with her, bathing her in the Light till it was hers and hers alone. Her brilliant, blinding Light.

It scared him.


End file.
